Chapter 71 (2/2)

Early in the morning at five, Ning Que and Sang Sang got up, started was.h.i.+ng up, getting dressed, and eating breakfast. The beginning of the term for the entire Tang Empire was a big event that everyone’s eyes in the whole world would be watching. To the people of ChangAn City, it was an even more long-awaited day. Every kind of little peddler s.h.i.+fted trading to an earlier date, thus the master and servant very luckily were able to eat hot and sour noodle soup.

Ning Que yawned incessantly, rubbing his somewhat stinging eyes. Clearly he didn’t sleep well last night. Sang Sang was propping up her even darker eye circles, even darker than her skin. Seeing her appearance she was even more nervous than her master by several margins.

The Department of Rites had a special carriage for picking up candidates, but because Ning Que wanted to take Sang Sang along, they chose to go by themselves in a carriage. Carriage renters knew this customer’s ident.i.ty, and didn’t dare to be neglectful – by midnight they were already on standby at the street entrance, so the master and servant left the Old Brush House, and immediately set off moving southward.

In East City it was still good, but once they entered South City it became very difficult to move an inch. Currently it was the darkness of dawn; the vast Vermillion Bird main street appeared a bit dark, packed tightly with hundreds of carriages. A light rain was falling from the sky, dampening the innumerable numbers of wheels on the limestone tiles as they moved, and many horses stepped angrily in the rainwater.

The shuttle for candidates of the Department of Rites was allowed to pa.s.s first. Carrying a certificate, it entered the exam hall at the direction of the military at the city gates, and with difficulty, it squeezed a desperate path through. Following the drum tower it dashed through the Vermilion Bird Gateway becoming a long dragon. Today the candidates of ChangAn City were the most important people; those carriages of various officials partic.i.p.ating in the opening ceremony and even the Imperial Clan’s n.o.ble relatives, were all pushed aside. As for those rich merchants and scholars that were able to buy admission tickets to watch the liveliness, they were further unceremoniously shuffled to the back.

Candidates were more important than officials, more important than those merchants that could bring more taxes to the Empire. This appeared to be quite unimaginable, but it was the reality, and seeing the quiet of those luxurious carriages, and their entourages with expressions like Chang, it could be imagined that for countless years past, the opening ceremony of the Academy was always like this.

Ning Que and Sang Sang sitting within a carriage would from time to time, lift the carriage curtain and look at the surrounding activity, and their rather nervous and anxious moods gradually calmed down. When the carriage finally went through ChangAn City’s South Gate, following along the s.p.a.cious official road towards the South, heading towards that high, extremely tall mountain in the clouds, they even had the mind to appreciate the scenery.

The spring rain was still falling from time to time, but that sudden tall mountain rising out from the plains of the Wei River wasn’t the slightest bit affected, because in front, the peak of the mountain was clear and bright because the peak was even higher than the rain clouds. The rising sun shed radiance reflected by the mountain cliffs, spilling rays of light onto the world, giving a very warm feeling.

The carriage traveled in the drizzling rain towards the peak beneath the rising sun in front of them, Ning Que’s mood suddenly became extremely calm. Without knowing why, he felt that that place had something very interesting to himself; some kind of hint of something that he very much liked.

The south of ChangAn, underneath a great mountain was the Academy.

Precisely that which had stood for thousands of years of wind and rain, that had along didn’t have a name; with a history even longer than the Tang Empire, that had trained countless previous great ministers for the Tang Empire and the world, the Academy that was not at all mystical, but nearly divine.

And was also exactly where after countless hards.h.i.+ps, the place where Ning Que absolutely wanted to go.    ……    ……

A nameless great mountain, suddenly rising from between plains and rivers, directly charging into the enveloping sky.

A nameless academy, silently appearing during troubled times of the world of mortals, towering for eternity.

Dozens of wagons arrived at the foot of the mountain in succession, and those discussions and laughter inside of the carriages came to an abrupt halt. Previously the students who had come hadn’t felt any kind of oppressive atmosphere, and because of the respect in their hearts, they absolutely had to become silent.

Under the clear and elegant rays of the sun, the area under the mountain was extremely large, with green-green gra.s.s gradually sloping into hills, fluctuating like a frozen ocean wave, and green gra.s.s with rubella shrubs like a painting. Within the painting was a view of more than ten complex crisscrossing carriageways. The roads were separated on the sides by several trunks of flowering trees planted a distance away. In the center of the meadow were even more whitish and pinkish flowering trees, unknowable as to whether they were apricot or peach-colored, and not at all managed but still extremely beautifully spread on the hillside, beautiful and elegant to the uttermost.

Next the window, Ning Que and Sang Sang looked at this wonderland of the world, looking at those not at all tall, black and white buildings stretching on for an unknowable length on the gra.s.sy slope, they couldn’t help but to be a bit entranced. After a long period of silence, he turned his head towards Sang Sang and extremely seriously said, “I definitely have to get into the Academy!”

Sang Sang looked up with her worried little face and looked at him, and said, “Master, the several topics for the entrance exam…….did you finish them yet?”

Ning Que was silent for a long time. After a while he choked out one thing with annoyance, “Auspicious words! You kid, don’t you know what’s called auspicious words!”

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